Times Square: The Trail of Pakistani Taliban Is Confirmed

Even if we were expecting it a bit, the shock is still intense: Washington has just confirmed that Faisal Shahzad, the man behind the failed bombing attempt in Times Square in Manhattan, was acting on behalf of the group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, a Taliban movement in Pakistan) — a huge embarrassment for Islamabad… and for the United States.

It’s Hillary Clinton who was the first to say out loud what every responsible American was thinking: The attempt in Times Square may have been prevented, but, if another attack of the same sort managed to succeed in the future, the United States would have to strike back. “We’ve made it very clear that if, heaven-forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences,” the American secretary of state declared during an interview on CBS. These consequences aren’t that difficult to imagine: Washington will no longer put up with the constantly-renewed promises from Islamabad to eliminate terrorists who take refuge in Pakistan; Americans will simply “take care of it” themselves — a nightmare for Pakistani authorities, whether with respect to the civil government or the military establishment.

Anti-Americanism isn’t surprising in Pakistan. Maybe if the United States decided to stop opening fire with drones (non-piloted airplanes) on the tribal zone of North Waziristan, which they’ve already bombarded with the regularity of a metronome, and they sent elite armed forces, as promised (they are, at the moment, supposed to train a small fraction of the Pakistani army), Pakistani public opinion would change. The government — even the army, which seems to have gotten its influence back — could bear the cost.

And Now?

At the same time, the United States needs Pakistan to get out of this mess in Afghanistan. They can’t ignore the fragility of the situation in Pakistan, where democracy only just recently found its footing. So, once again, they’ve put the carrot at the end of the stick. Saturday, General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. troops and the Coalition of Afghanistan, traveled to Islamabad, where he met with General Ashfaq Kayani, the leader of the Pakistani army. According to the New York Times, he bluntly asked him to launch an offensive attack against North Waziristan. This tribal zone harbors Taliban Afghanis, but also Pakistanis. It’s there that Hakimullah Mehsud, the head of the TTP, believed to be dead (see the photo below) but who recently re-emerged, has taken refuge. He’s not there alone: All the militant Islamists who managed to flee before the offensive attack against South Waziristan have taken refuge up north. There, they’ve found elements of al-Quaida and Punjabi jihadists again. It’s there that Faisal Shahzad, the “Amateur Terrorist” of Times Square, was trained.

And yet, officially, Americans claimed to be very satisfied with the cooperation of Pakistan in this investigation. Most importantly, they immediately declared that there wasn’t any doubt necessary for giving financial aid to Pakistan in the name of battling terrorism.

The Taliban has made an enormous point to the United States, even if it’s, above all, a psychological one: The attempt in Times Square was prevented, but the damage is done; the enemy has planted its foot in American territory. Until now, Washington feared, above all else, a large scale attack in India brought on by Pakistani terrorists for a simple reason: That could cause the Indians to retaliate and send troops to the Pakistan-India border (like in 2002, after the attack on December 13, 2001, against the Parliament of Delhi). Pakistan would retaliate, of course, and withdraw troops from their Western Front, exactly where the United States truly has a need for Pakistani soldiers. This is exactly why Washington has never hesitated to ask India to show a little restraint.